Real Nuns Can't Fly
by samurai frasier crane
Summary: At some point in season four, Sam mentions an off-screen conversation with Diane in which they agreed to "keep their distance" - so here's that conversation! Sam drives Diane home from the convent. They discuss flying nuns, among other things.
1. Chapter 1

He was halfway to his car when he heard the footsteps behind him but did not turn around at first, continuing to the edge of the convent's grounds and wondering vaguely if it was really possible to recognize someone just by the sound of their gait. Probably not, he decided. More likely the recognition came from common sense alone, the knowledge that the nuns had considerably fewer reasons to be chasing after him than _she_ did. Still, he didn't turn around. It seemed some strange inner force was telling him not to, or maybe just not letting him. _You've already told her what you want, so don't say anything else unless she does. It's her turn to talk. God knows she should be able to manage _that.

"Sam, wait!"

There it was. Now he could stop. He turned slowly, and in a few strides she'd closed the distance between them.

"Um," he said. "What's—"

"Sam, you were right."

"About, uh…"

"Me coming back. I want to come back to Cheers."

"Oh… oh yeah?" He grinned reflexively and felt a stab of irritation at himself for it – why'd he always have to be so damn transparent? "I thought you loved your life among the penguins."

"Sam!" The sharpness in her voice was belied by the way her lips twitched in amusement. "Don't call them that."

"Ever, or while we're here?"

"Oh, shut up."

"I was gonna make a wildlife documentary about you. Diane Chambers among the penguins."

She snorted. "You're just awful! Well, as much as I loathe to stand between you and your newfound dream, I hardly think this would make a very interesting wildlife documentary."

"I dunno, I've heard these nuns can get pretty crazy when they think no one's watching."

"Where did you hear that?"

"Oh… I probably just made it up when I was fourteen or so."

"Now _there's_ your wildlife documentary." For a second their eyes met and she laughed softly. "Will you wait out here while I get my stuff?"

"Oh." He blinked. "Now?"

"I hardly have anything here, it'll just take a few minutes."

"Well, sure."

But she didn't move. Her eyes flickered between him and the convent a few times. "Actually," she took his wrist and started dragging him back towards the building, "why don't you come."

"Uh, am I allowed to?"

"Of course you are, you're the rice inspector."

"Oh yeah. Where would they be without me?"

It was strange to cross through the dim halls, knowing she had lived in them for – how long? He realized then that he had no idea, when the "flesh binge" had ended and when this had begun, but it seemed somehow imprudent to ask. A question like that could lead anywhere, quite possibly somewhere he didn't want to go.

"Geez," he said, "you have to sleep in a dormitory?"

"Oh, yes." The beds were lined up in rows and she approached one near the end, rifling through the end table for a few scant belongings. "Everything here is very communal."

"Huh. Doesn't that drive you crazy?"

"Why would it?"

"I dunno…" He thought back to spring training in the bush leagues, when they'd all been crammed into a tiny bunkhouse together. "No privacy. Don't you feel like someone's always watching you?"

Her lips twitched again and he saw her glance quickly at the crucifix mounted on the wall. "I think that's the general idea."

They encountered no one on their way out – a relief to Sam, who had a hunch his "rice inspector" alibi was about as transparent as everything else he tried to do. "So, uh…" He nodded to the small bag she was carrying. "Where's the rest of your stuff?"

"At home."

"What about the stuff from…" He trailed off, hoping she would figure out what he was trying to ask – but she seemed either unable or unwilling. "What about all the stuff you had in Europe?"

"Oh. I lost it."

"You lost it?"

"Yes."

"Diane, didn't you bring…" He was going to ask how she'd managed to lose six months' worth of luggage, but stopped himself midway, deciding the topic wasn't really worth pursuing. They reached the car and he held open the door for her.

"Thank you, Sam."

He grunted in response and settled himself in the driver's seat, pulling out of the convent onto a quiet expanse of highway. "How'd you find this place?"

"The phone book."

"The phone book?"

"Yes, I liked the name."

"Sisters of the Divine Severity?!"

"It was… oh, it's a long story."

"I thought those were your favorite kind."

"No." She sighed, shifting in her seat to lean against the window. "Not this one."

For a while they drove in silence, Sam straining his mind to think of something – anything – to say. Everything he came up with struck him as dangerous. He watched her from the corner of his eye and found her equally ill-at-ease, her forehead creased as she chewed on her bottom lip. When she spoke again it almost startled him.

"Sam… I'm… I'm sorry to bring this up, I know it's… way in the past, now… But I can't quite make sense of it. How did you possibly think you were going to make it to Italy in time for, uh…"

"Your wedding?" he finished, smirking.

"Yes, that."

"Well…" He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. "I did make it in time. You just, uh, weren't there."

"But…" She counted something out on her fingers. "You would've needed to leave the night before, wouldn't you?"

"I _did_ leave the night before."

"No, you didn't."

He was starting to feel irritated; his grip tightened on the wheel. "Sweetheart, if I was gonna make something up, believe me, I'd come up with something a lot better than this."

"I didn't mean… Sam, I _know_ you were at Cheers the morning I was supposed to—"

"Do you wanna see my damn passport? Or the papers from when I got _arrested_?"

"Arrested?"

"It's a long story," he said dryly.

"But…"

"But what?"

"Sam," she mumbled, "I called you that morning…and you picked up."

"What? I definitely didn't. You sure you weren't just dreaming about me again?"

"Do you have to make stupid jokes about everything?"

He glanced at her and found her surprisingly stricken – for whatever reason, she was convinced that this was true. "Uh, sorry," he said awkwardly. "What… what did we talk about?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I just wanted to… uh, well, you said hello and I hung up."

None of this came together in any logical way, but he found himself suddenly sidetracked from one mystery by another. "Um… Why did you call me?"

"No reason."

"Yeah, why would you need a reason to call up your ex-boyfriend on your wedding day?"

"We're _friends_, Sam."

"Oh." He felt his grip slacken on the steering wheel – what had he expected her to say? Clearly the phone conversation was some delusion of hers, but he found himself wishing it was true – that he hadn't been stupid enough to do what he actually did. "Well… Well, that's—"

"It's bull."

"What?"

"I don't know, I just made it up. Force of habit, I guess." She gave him a half-smile, half-grimace, then looked away. "Oh, I think there's a nun pun in there somewhere. Force of habit… Force of _habit_… We'll have to come back to it."

"Diane, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, the noun 'habit' can refer to either a repeated pattern of behavior or a religious garment worn by—"

"I know what a habit is," he interrupted. "How else would The Flying Nun fly? That's not what I meant."

"Sam, don't be stupid. The Flying Nun doesn't fly _because of_ her habit, it's because she's so small she gets caught on the breeze."

"That's not even possible."

"Right, because plausibility is what they were going for."

"Her habit is shaped like airplane wings, Diane, you're trying to tell me that doesn't mean something?"

"Well, maybe it's—"

"If it was just the _wind_ it could happen to anyone. She wouldn't even need to be a nun. It could happen to you."

"No." She shook her head and slumped against the window again, her voice suddenly dull. He noticed for the first time how exhausted she looked. "Real nuns can't fly."

"And you're not a nun anyway."

Was he winning this argument? For a few minutes it had seemed very important that he prove the obvious scientific relationship between the Flying Nun's habit and her unusual abilities, but it only seemed to be depressing Diane. Hadn't they been talking about something else? Yes, they definitely had been.

"No," she agreed, "I'm not a nun. No blowing away on the wind."

"Well, that's probably a good thing." When she met his eyes he almost winced; she seemed so small hunched over against the window, but at the same time weighted down by something obscured and unnamable. "Um, what did you mean when you said—"

"Sam." She touched his arm and he stiffened. "We're… we really are friends, aren't we?"

He glanced at her, letting his gaze linger for perhaps a moment longer than was necessary. "I… Yeah, of course we are."

"Well," she mumbled, "that's not why I called you." Her hand fell from his arm and she busied herself tugging at the fabric of her sleeve. A thread was loose and she pulled on it, fraying the edge.

"Stop, you're gonna—"

"It doesn't matter, I'm not going to wear it again. I called because… oh, this is so embarrassing. It shouldn't be. I suppose it really doesn't matter anymore, since it's abundantly clear that our past actions have no bearing on our current feelings, but for whatever reason—"

"Will you get to the point?"

"Oh, right. I called because I guess… I guess I was hoping you'd come to Italy and stop me. I know it's ridiculous, but I really wasn't in a… stable frame of mind…"

"Yeah, what else is new?" He grinned and she returned it feebly, then returned to ripping up her sleeve. "Anyway," he added, "it wasn't so ridiculous."

"It wasn't?"

"Well…" He sighed, feeling stupid. "I did come."

"I still don't see how—"

"Why'd you want me to stop you?"

He blurted the question without thinking and was unsure, afterwards, if he should have. The hand tugging on the sleeve came to rest; he saw her shoulders tense.

"You know why," she said finally.

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked."

"Because… well, the same reason… I guess…" She cleared her throat, fidgeting in her seat and looking positively mortified by whatever she was planning to say. "I guess maybe I thought I was in love with you too. _God_, what a mess. But I don't anymore, Sam, don't worry."

"That's… that's good."

She nodded rigidly.

"I guess we dodged a bullet there, huh?" he said.

"What?"

"I dunno…" He kept his eyes locked on the road. "Imagine if you'd shown up."

"You mean, if you'd gotten the date right."

"I did get the—oh hell, it really doesn't matter. But I guess… things could have turned out a lot worse than they did."

"Yes, what a… catastrophe that would have been."

A strained silence filled the car and he knew the question had indeed been a bad one to pose; it seemed something had changed and he was not sure what to do about it. When he could take it no longer he resorted to the only solution he always felt he could trust.

"Are you hungry?"

"What? Oh god yes, I've been eating rice for six weeks straight."

He laughed. "Where d'you wanna go?"

At that moment they passed a billboard advertising a rest stop and she pointed to it excitedly. "Let's go there."

"Really? You want a hamburger?"

"Why can't I want a hamburger?"

"I never said you couldn't. I just thought you only liked foods I can't spell or pronounce."

"That's not true. You can spell 'rice.'"

"Oh yeah, I know about the silent 'e' and everything."

He pulled into the rest stop and parked the car in front of a Wendy's. "No," she said, "not here. I meant the Jack-in-the-Box."

"But they're the exact same thing."

"No, they're not. I can't eat here."

"Sweetheart, they're literally the exact—"

"I'm afraid of Wendy."

"_What_?"

"Wendy!" She pointed to the mascot painted on the sign. "Look at her, Sam, she's just creepy."

He snorted. "Aw, she's harmless. She's just a little girl with pigtails."

"But look at her eyes."

"What about them?"

"I don't know. There's something off. You've never noticed?"

"I guess I'm just used to it from hanging around you so much."

"Oh, you ass." She gave him a playful shove and he smiled. "Can we go to Jack-in-the-Box instead?"

"I dunno, Wendy's is really a lot better…"

"You just said they were the same!"

"Oh, fine."

They locked the car and started across the parking lot. Reflexively he placed a hand on her back, then thought better of it and let it drop to his side. At the entrance he hesitated. "You really think Wendy is scarier than _Jack_?"

"What's so scary about Jack?"

"Clowns are way scarier than little girls."

"He's not a clown, Sam, he's just a man with a giant ping-pong ball in lieu of a head."

"And that doesn't scare you?!"

"Aww." She took his hand and pulled him towards the glass doors, now looking thoroughly amused. "Are you afraid of Jack?"

"Not _afraid_, just, uh… cautious."

After placing their orders Sam noticed a phone booth in the corner and started towards it. "I'm gonna call Cheers," he said, "and let Carla know I'll be late."

She trailed after him. "But she won't be there yet, will she?"

He popped in a quarter and began to dial the number. "Naw, I'm gonna leave a voicemail."

"You bought an answering machine?"

"Yeah, it must've been… I dunno, it's been awhile now." The usual message sounded and he spoke into the receiver. "Hey Carla, it's Sam. Just calling to let you…_oh_…"

Midsentence it hit him and he trailed off, feeling a plummeting in his stomach. Diane cocked her head, watching him with a trace of concern in her features. "Sam?"

He hung up abruptly.

"Is everything okay?"

"It's… hang on." He dropped another quarter into the slot and this time dialed his private line.

"Sam, what—"

"Shut up." He pressed the receiver to her ear. "This sound familiar?"

As she listened to the message the color drained from her face. "Oh…"

"Yeah."

"I… I guess you did show up, then."

Her voice sounded small and almost wavering – god, was she going to cry? If she did cry, what the hell did that _mean_ – and furthermore, what was he supposed to do? Touch her? Not touch her? It seemed like it'd be so easy to just reach out and pull her close, but did she want him to? As it turned out, he wouldn't have to make any decisions for himself. Someone else – as if divinely sanctioned for the job – took care of things for him.

"Hey!" the cashier called. "I got your orders ready."

"We'd better get those," Diane said quickly, hooking the receiver back in place. He nodded. They crossed to the counter, neither looking at the other.


	2. Chapter 2

The interruption seemed to restore some vestige of normalcy between them, and when they reached their booth, Sam could bring himself to look at her again. He almost laughed when he realized she'd ordered what must've been the biggest thing on the menu, some grotesque, multi-layered medley of meat and cheese.

"God, they must have been starving you over there if you wanna eat _that_."

She held the burger daintily up to the light, inspecting it. "How…? Is this supposed to fit in my mouth?"

He snorted. "C'mon, sweetheart, you've managed to fit—"

"Sam Malone, if you actually make that stupid joke right now, I'll…"

"You'll what?"

She inclined her head menacingly towards a nearby portrait of the Jack-in-the-Box mascot. "I'll send _him_ after you. His whole ping-pong-headed family."

"Oh, all right." He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'll behave myself."

"I still don't know how to eat this."

"So eat these." He pushed a carton of fries across the table. "While you mull it over."

"Yes." She lowered the burger back into its container, craning her neck to study it from every possible angle. "This will definitely require a scientific approach."

The way she ate was so funny – how even though she'd professed to being starved by nuns for six weeks, she still picked at the fries as if she were a deeply disinterested bird. Who the hell needed four bites to eat a French fry? At this rate they'd be there for hours, but – maniacal clown mascots or not – he couldn't really think of anywhere better to be.

"What are you looking at?"

"What?" He gave a start. "Nothing. I was staring into space."

"It looked like you were staring at me."

"No, I was staring into _space_ and you just happened to get in the way."

"In the way of space?"

"Yeah, I'd have a great view of space if you weren't blocking it. That's not my fault. It's not up to me where you go."

These last words seemed to fall heavier than the others, an unintentional truth mixed in with the rest of their stupid banter. They both stiffened, almost imperceptibly. Diane dragged a French fry across her tray, smearing a red trail of ketchup from end to end.

"No," she said. "I guess it's not."

"Um…"

"Sam."

When she looked up again he was surprised to find that her earlier good humor had vanished almost entirely, replaced by something he could not quite pinpoint. Was she angry? There was a strange fierceness in the way she was looking at him, but he couldn't think of anything he'd done to piss her off. He stared back, barely blinking.

"Why did you make that your voicemail?"

Whatever strength he had noticed in her moments earlier vanished immediately after she posed the question; it seemed to sap her of energy and she slumped back against the booth, watching him dolefully.

"Oh… I don't know… I just thought it was funny."

"Well, it's not funny."

"It's sort of funny…"

"Sam," she snapped. "You put me through _hell_."

"I put _you_ through hell?" God, where had this come from? He was too taken aback to be anything but incredulous. "That's funny. From what I've heard, it sounds like you had yourself a pretty good time over there."

"Well, I didn't."

"Yeah, I like to dance on tabletops when I'm bummed out too."

"Shut up!" She glowered at him. "God, what else did Frasier tell you? Never mind, I don't even want to know. He doesn't even know. It was… oh…"

"What?"

"It was _terrifying_, Sam. I've never… I didn't even know who I was."

His stomach gave a lurch when he realized she'd started to cry. "Oh, come on," he said. "Don't do that."

She sniffed a few times, wiping her face with her sleeve. "Sorry."

"Don't _apologize_, just stop!" But she didn't stop. For a moment he watched her helplessly, then succumbed to the stupid impulse that had been begging to be acted upon for most of the day. He scooted in a kind of awkward, half-moon arc to her side of the booth and draped an arm over her shoulder.

She let out a long sigh and leaned in, seeming to calm down some. "I suppose it isn't really your fault," she mumbled. "I just… I know things worked out for the best, but for some reason I was so utterly _convinced_ that you were going to come… I didn't even think about Frasier. I guess I thought we'd figure out what to do with him when you got there. God, it sounds even stupider when I say it now."

To the contrary, Sam thought it sounded vaguely familiar – but then, maybe that was just further evidence of how stupid it was. "Don't," he began, but found the rest of the words die in his throat.

"Don't what?"

"Don't beat yourself up over it."

"I'm trying not to! I've been trying all summer. But… but I deserve it, don't I? When you didn't show up I guess it all hit me – what'd I'd done to him, and for no _reason_. I felt like a monster."

"I did show up," he murmured.

"Well, that doesn't do much good now, does it?" He felt her tense beneath his touch. "Not that it would've done us any good then, either," she added quickly. "It would have been… um…"

"A catastrophe?"

She smirked at this, perhaps recognizing the word as the same one she'd used earlier. "Sam, what… what would have happened?"

"Oh… I dunno."

"You didn't think about it at all?"

"Did you?"

"I asked first."

"It's not like calling shotgun!"

"Tell me."

"Oh, fine." He glanced at her, curled up against him with a strange expression in her eyes – sort of glassy and distant but somehow alert, as if she were looking for something far away that she'd lost. "I don't know what _you_ would've done, but… Didn't I already say this? I probably would've asked you to marry me."

"Is that…" She met his eyes searchingly and it took all his willpower not to look away. "I mean, was that really what you wanted?"

"It was then, I guess."

"Well, then I _probably_ would have said yes."

"Well…" Why was it suddenly so hard to make words come out? "I guess we dodged a bullet."

"You already said that."

"Isn't it…" He coughed. "Isn't it true?"

"Of course it's true, I just…"

"What?"

"I don't know, when you didn't—I mean, when I thought you didn't come, I felt like I'd gone completely _crazy_. How… how crazy would I have to be to expect something like that?"

"Pretty crazy."

"But you _did_ come."

"I know." He smiled faintly. "I was pretty crazy too."

"We…we would've made quite the pair."

"Yeah, they could've locked us up in some Italian loony bin together."

"I don't think I would've minded much."

He conjured this bizarre scenario in his mind, and for whatever reason it seemed to unlock a kind of floodgate; he realized for the first time the enormity of what had happened. At that moment it didn't even matter to him if it had been for the best or not – it was simply absurd to think that everything had unfolded as it did because of an _answering machine_.

"It's funny," he murmured.

Her eyes narrowed. "What's funny?"

"Just that I've spent the last few months hating you."

"Oh." She fidgeted in her seat. "Do you hate me now?"

"Aw, how could I? All starved by nuns and afraid of _Wendy_. It's pitiful."

"I'm _pitiful_?"

"Yeah, you're just tragic. Like a three-legged dog."

She laughed, rolling her eyes. "When you said your feelings towards me were equivalent to what you feel for a dog, I didn't know it was a three-legged dog."

"You're not a very grateful one either. I bought you that," he nodded at the hamburger, "and you won't even eat it."

"I don't know how!"

"Yeah, that thing should really come with an instruction manual."

"Sam…"

He glanced at her, waiting for her to finish the thought – but it seemed to have been lost in transit, or maybe that was all she'd meant to say to begin with. His grip around her tightened. When he spoke, the voice he heard sounded distant and strangely calm.

"Yeah?"

"Do you, uh…" Quite suddenly she detangled herself from him and slid out of the booth. "Let's go outside."

"Oh." He blinked. His mind processed this shift faster than the rest of him; his hand dropped limply back to his side, seeming to wonder where the thing it'd been holding had gone. "Why?"

"Because it's a nice day."

"I… okay." He rose from his seat and crammed their uneaten food back into the paper bag, then followed her from the restaurant. They sat down on a bench, staring out at the sun-splashed parking lot. She took the bag from him and rifled inside for the enormous hamburger.

"Are you gonna eat it?"

"No." She nodded to a few pigeons that had gathered in the vicinity. "It's for them."

"I thought you were hungry."

"So are they."

"Yeah, but they're gross."

"Aw, I think they're cute." She tore up the bun and tossed the pieces at their feet. "I don't know why I like them. Probably because no one else does."

"Hey, that's the same reason I like you."

She cast him a twisted grin. "Well, I like you because you're a big, stupid, blundering Neanderthal who—"

"Stop it, I'm blushing."

"Oh…" She laughed. "I've… I've missed you, Sam."

"Yeah, I guess I've missed you too." He sighed. "It hasn't exactly been a fun summer."

Her eyes glazed over again, but to his relief she managed to keep herself from crying. "When I heard… I didn't find out until I got back… I was… I'm just glad that you're okay. Have you… have you been okay?"

However muddled this was, he knew immediately that she was talking about Coach and asking him the same question he'd posed to himself – how he'd managed to stay away from the bottle this time around. "Well…" He shrugged. "It wasn't easy, but yeah… I've been okay."

"How did you…? I mean—"

"It was Coach, Diane, I wasn't gonna start drinking again. He saved my life. What… what a lousy way to repay him." He swallowed. "I still miss him like hell. I know it's stupid and sentimental, but I just wish I'd been able to… I don't know… Thank him, for everything."

"Oh Sam." She took his hand and squeezed it. "It isn't stupid, it's human. Did it… When did it happen?"

"Before I got back."

"Did he know where you'd gone?"

"Yeah, I mean… God, he seemed fine when I left. I barely even said goodbye."

When he looked at her he found that same glassy, distant look in her eyes, and – more surprisingly – a strange smile spreading across her face. "What?" he said.

"Oh, it's… Well, he probably thought we got married… Don't you think?"

"Yeah," he said slowly. "I guess he did. That's… that's sort of nice. For him, I mean."

"He did like us together."

"Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure we were his retirement plan. He was definitely banking on that." Sam let out a short laugh, remembering the future Coach had imagined for the three of them. "He wasn't much of a realist, huh?"

"No, I guess not." She looked down at her hand, still loosely clasped in his. "Sam, do you really think we—"

"I've been trying not to think much of anything lately."

"How's that different from usual? Oh, don't give me that look, I'm joking."

He smiled weakly and shut his eyes, letting the sunlight wash over him. "Yeah, I know."

"I guess… I guess we both need space right now."

_Do we?_ he wondered. It seemed to him that space was all they'd ever had, and the harder he'd tried to close the distance, the more it expanded. "How much?" he asked.

"We'll know when it's enough."

"How?"

"I don't know, we just will."

Was that the answer, then – to just leave the space alone and hope it closed by itself? This hardly seemed satisfactory, but it was also the only solution that made much sense. Now he knew that things _might_ have been easy – but they weren't, because they never were, and so at the end of the day it really didn't matter much. Time had already diminished the person he was three months before, and he couldn't return to that even if he wanted to. There was no choice but to keep going forward.

"We should head back," he said. "I'm already an hour late." He helped her to her feet and they started towards the car.

"Do you want me to work today?"

"Uh, are you up to it?"

"Yes, I'd like to. I just need to change."

"Sure thing."

He glanced at her and saw she was smiling. Well, he thought, if they needed space… at least it was the same space. Real nuns can't fly, and she wasn't a nun anyhow. Maybe she'd leave again – he had no idea what the future held – but if she did, he swore to himself it wouldn't be like this. He was done letting the wind blow her away.


End file.
